MARIETTA - Teachers across Georgia may legally engage in sexual relationships with students 16 or older if the sex is consensual.

That is what the state Supreme Court held last summer when it ruled, 5-2, in Chase v. The State, a case out of Richmond County. The decision has immediate effects in Cobb County, where at least two former high school teachers are charged with sexual assaults of students older than 16.

At issue is Georgia law 16-6-5.1, which defines sexual assault against persons in custody.

The statute has three subsections, and while one part of the law prohibits a "supervisor of another person" from having sexual contact with a person enrolled in a school, a different section, which addresses sexual contact between a supervisor and someone in legal custody or detained in an institution or hospital, includes this caveat: "Consent of the victim shall not be a defense to a prosecution under this subsection."

The court's majority found that the General Assembly, in writing the law, had not added that caveat to the other sections of the law, meaning they had not removed consent as a defense for those sections. In Georgia, the age of consent is 16.

A lawmaker from Gainesville has already drafted legislation for the 2010 session to crystallize the illegality. And a Cobb lawmaker, Rep. Rob Teilhet, says if that bill can't be passed quickly, "I don't know what we'll do this year of any value."

Christopher King, a former teacher at Marietta High School, is one of the Cobb defendants. King, 36, was arrested in May and accused of having sex with a 17-year-old female student. King had taught English and journalism since 2004. The student in that case has testified that the relationship was consensual.

King's lawyer, Scott Semrau, said he does not see why his client is even being prosecuted, given the Chase decision. King was indicted in October on one felony count of sexual assault against a person in custody, and will plead not guilty at his arraignment, set for Dec. 1, Semrau said.

"I'm surprised (the case) hasn't been dismissed," Semrau said. "I just really think that they're wasting taxpayer money. There's absolutely no way they can successfully prosecute this case, and they know it."

But District Attorney Pat Head does not agree.

"The (Chase) opinion didn't say that the case should have been dismissed. We intend to go forward, and if the accused wishes to present consent as a defense then it will be a question for the jury," Head said.

Steven Martin Parkman, who was the orchestra director at Harrison High School before his arrest in April 2008, is facing a similar charge. Prosecutors allege that Parkman, who was 32 at the time of his arrest, had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl who attended Harrison. A trial date has not been set.

Although it will be up to juries to decide whether either man committed a crime, the state board that deals with educators' ethics has already acted by revoking both men's teaching certificates.

Kelly Henson, executive secretary of the Professional Standards Commission, said, "Consent has no bearing on the fact that we consider it completely and totally unethical. Educators who have sexual relations with students can be certain that we will take a severe sanction against their certificate."

While that is some comfort to the father of the student in the Christopher King case, it's not enough.

"It is a crime if he is not asked to answer for what he did," said the father, who is not being named to protect the identity of his daughter. "It is indescribably painful to see something like this happen to your daughter. It has totally influenced her teenage years, and it has devastated my family."

The Chase decision, he said, "means that parents no longer have the security of knowing they can send their children to school without a teacher preying on them."

Teilhet, a Smyrna Democrat, also disputed the idea of consent in such cases.

"I've heard some people suggest that some cases of statutory rape or abuses of power like this are somehow victimless if there is consent. I think that's flat wrong," Teilhet said.

"The whole premise behind consent not being a defense ... is that the victim is not in a position to resist, and is very vulnerable to be taken advantage of," Teilhet said. "A 16-year-old who is taken advantage of by an adult suffers long-term consequences as a result. I don't care if the victim consented or not. The older person has a higher responsibility. Consent isn't good enough."

Teilhet is the father of twin girls, and is seeking his party's nomination for state Attorney General in 2010.

Meanwhile his colleague, state Rep. Doug Collins, a Gainesville Republican, is already working to rewrite the law. Within days of the Chase decision, he had new legislation drafted that would remove consent as a defense when a teacher or someone who works in a school is charged with having sex with a student enrolled in high school.

"The Supreme Court highlighted a problem with the law, and I want to correct that," said Collins, who was first elected to the legislature in 2006. He is also an Air Force chaplain, assigned to the 94th Airlift Wing at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta.

"I don't anticipate a great deal of opposition. I'm an attorney, and I do some criminal defense work," said Collins, 43, who is himself the father of teenagers. "I just want to address what I consider a very narrow issue. I don't think anybody would've expected that a teacher could get away with having sex with a student and it not be illegal. It's a narrow window that needs to be closed."